


Fragments of a Blooming Rose

by deathrae



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Cyberpunk AU, F/M, I mean fenris is in this so.........., probably hawke/fenris later?, that first line is definitely inspired by neuromancer oops, we'll see if that archive warning for violence comes in later
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-08
Updated: 2015-10-08
Packaged: 2018-04-25 11:22:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4958671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathrae/pseuds/deathrae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some people call it Cyberspace, the dark sub-space that for a thousand years only existed in surfacers' dreams. But with an industrial revolution came invention and discovery, and when they found it, the humans and elves flooded Cyberspace with data and electricity, for better or worse. But lurking in that space was the Spawn, corrupted bits of data and the energy left behind by those who jack into Cyberspace to use its power, channeling it into the "real" world...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fragments of a Blooming Rose

**Author's Note:**

> Not entirely sure this will continue because I don't really have a STORY for this, mostly it was just concept exploration. Hope you guys enjoy it!

The sky over Kirkwall was grey again, shot through with a blueish green that reeked of ozone and electricity and a promise of beautiful destruction. Hightown’s windows were shuttered against the brewing storm, but in Lowtown the undesirables and the apostates prowled. In Lowtown’s gloomy alleys, even under the shadow of black clouds, deals were struck, alliances broken and made, and trysts consummated with fleeting, hungry kisses and clutching fingers. It was exactly as she liked it, the secretive mage from wartorn Ferelden, here where a cutting word and a pithy one-liner were just as appreciated and deadly as a well-placed spell.

Hawke was, at the moment, leaning against a building at the mouth of an alley a few blocks from the seedy bar her friends preferred: The Hanged Man, known for its mystery stew, its affordable liquor, and a booth in the corner that one of the members of her ever-growing group of companions, Varric, had all but labeled as their own. Four jobs ago they’d erased some hefty zoning fines that were coming due for the Hanged Man’s esteemed proprietor, so he was all too willing to let them have free reign of the table.

She flipped open the fadegear disguised as an old-fashioned-looking vambrace on her left arm, wincing as the newly replaced wiring pulled uncomfortably at her skin. She rubbed at one of the junctions where a red wire entered her arm (it didn’t help, but it always felt like it should) and set a mental reminder to ask Merrill for more of that Dalish herbal shit. Anders was good, _very_ good, but he wasn’t exactly ace for aftercare.

Readings looked good, at least. She rubbed the contacts on her leather-wire gloves together to warm them and then thumbed through a few screens, checking on her various vantage points, key parts of town where she’d set up wards. So soon after a Blight surge, you couldn’t be too careful, but it looked like Spawn counts were still low everywhere, as she flicked from site to site. Hightown, near her mother’s house… Darktown, where Anders had his clinic… the Alienage, where Merrill lived. The creepy old Tevinter hideaway where Fenris was squatting. The guard barracks, the pub crawl Isabela could usually be found on. Looked like there wasn’t much to worry about. A few very visible spikes of Fade activity though, above the normal levels that Kirkwall’s mages, apostate or otherwise, would have caused. She’d have to keep an eye on that. Tension was running high now that the Qunari were parked on the docks, but even if they had their own mages, that shouldn’t have flagged. And the Qun weren’t exactly big on Fade runs.

Unless they _were_. In which case they were up to far more than they’d let on. She’d have to make some inquiries.

Ah, the Fade. A popular colloquial term for the quasi-metaphysical plane of cyberspace that ran parallel to the real world. Most people couldn’t wire into it, though there were some theories circling that most normal folk jack in simply by falling asleep. Mages, though… that was a different story entirely. Faderiders, they were called by the common folk. Mages eat, drink, and live the Fade, reaching into it as easy as breathing to access power and knowledge beyond, as the Andrastian Chantry would like to say, the natural deserving of man.

Hawke was, admittedly, not overly concerned with what the Chantry wanted to convince her. The Fade was a part of her, same as anyone else, but it talked to her. Not in the crackle of voices that sounded like they were echoing out of a phone receiver, but in the low, digital tones of what Hawke could only assume was the Fade itself. The phone-souls she ignored, as her father had always taught; that was, at best, energy left behind by those who channeled the Fade, and at worst, the _things_ that had lived in the Fade long before anyone ever developed the power to actually jack in.

Her vambrace flashed a slow, blinking red out of a gem set over her hand, and when she slid a receiver into her ear and tapped it, it beeped warningly before fuzzing over onto a connected call.

“Varric, talk to me, what’s taking so long?”

A sharp voice thick with frustration and rigid tension cut through the air and crackled into Hawke’s ear.

“ _Hawke_.”

“Ah. Hello, Aveline.” Hawke grinned, rubbing a hand over her mouth to try to quell a smile that Aveline would hear over the phone. “Before you ask, my business with Varric that I was talking about is _definitely_ something completely legal and above-board and you don’t have to worry about it.”

Aveline _sighed_ in her ear, as only Aveline can, and Hawke covered her mouth to hide a laugh.

“ _Hawke, this may surprise you, but I’m not stupid._ ”

“I would never say you were stupid!”

“ _But you’d think it_.”

“What I say can and will be used against me in a court of law, I presume?”

“ ** _Hawke_**.”

“Aveline, where are you, anyway? I don’t hear the sounds of clanking and manly men arguing with each other, I assume you aren’t in the barracks today.”

“ _No,_ ” Aveline said, and Hawke took another glance around for the dwarf she was supposed to be meeting. “ _I’m not, actually_.”

Hawke grinned. “Out with Donnic? Or perhaps you’re going to join us for Wicked Grace tonight?”

“ _The plan was to play a few hands, yes._ ”

"Was?" There was a twinge in Aveline’s voice that made Hawke a little nervous. A tint of mounting anger, perhaps. Or… _pain_? Maybe? She decided to play it safe and answer as neutrally as she could. “Is that… not the plan anymore?”

“ _Hawke, turn around_.”

She went very, very still, cold dread dropping into her stomach.

“If this is some poor idea of a joke,” she muttered, slowly glancing over her shoulder, then turning. She scanned the alley. No movement, no people shapes. No corrupted quasi-digital Spawn wandering around. They hadn’t been seen in Kirkwall in decades, but the corruption at Lothering still had her a little paranoid.

“Av—”

_plop_

She frowned, leaning forward to peer at a splotch of red that hadn’t been on the ground near her before. Against all better judgement, she slowly looked up.

Aveline hung from a neon sign for Hubert’s fine goods, her arms roped to the bottom of the sign to hold her aloft, but her shoulders looked like they were straining to keep her vertical and breathing. There was a strained, breathy exertion edging into her voice as she lifted a couple fingers in greeting.

“ _Hawke_ ,” she rasped across the phone.

“Maker,” Hawke breathed, the grisly display churning in her stomach, such that she couldn’t tell if she felt ill or just furious. “Who—”

Aveline’s eyes went a little narrow but her face, small and hard to see exactly from that height, seemed white with effort and pain. “ _Later. Please_.”

With a gesture up to Aveline, Hawke disconnected the call and rang Varric.

“ _Hawke!_ ” he chirped, warm and mid-laugh. “ _Where the hell are you? We expected you half an hour ago!_ ”

“Varric, no time. I need Anders, Fenris, and Merrill. Outside, in the alley by the Dusty Skirt. Five minutes ago.”

“ _The Dusty Skirt?_ ” he echoed, and there was a pause and the sound of fabric rustling, and she could envision him signaling and giving directions. “ _I’m guessing the drop didn’t go too well_.”

“No.” She waited for the sounds of boots dimly over Varric’s end and then flashed an affirmative sign up to Aveline. “If I had to wager, I’d guess someone figured out a guard was tailing me, figured the jig was up, and slipped.” Aveline scowled, which she took as a 'yes.'

“ _Then why would you need the elf pair and Blondie? Wait. What guard? Nobody was supposed to– Andraste’s **tits** , Hawke. Is Red with you?_”

“Uh…” Hawke looked up at Aveline, who looked to be mouthing something untoward. “In a manner of speaking.”

“ _Shit. They’re on their way._ ”

“Thanks. Call again when I’ve got news, or else I’ll see you in a few for cards.”

“ _Like hell, make sure she’s fine f—_ ”

Hawke disconnected again and sighed, looking up at Aveline. “Help’s coming,” she called up, then looked around for anything that might prove useful in getting her down.

The heavy pounding of Anders’ boots made her turn around, and the elves trailed a step behind him, their own footfalls much lighter, almost soundless. Fenris’ quick scan of the alley resulted in a downright animal growl, Merrill’s own gasp of sympathy a moment behind. Anders looked to Hawke first, then frowned. “What happened?”

Fenris stepped forward before Hawke could answer. “Aveline,” he called up, and Anders followed his gaze, swearing under his breath.

Aveline wiggled her fingers again in greeting. “Don’t let me forget to tell Varric: what I _actually_ do in my off-hours is usually just stupid.”

Hawke spared a soft chuckle for her, then looked to the others. “Merrill. You jack in, I want that vinework invocation. Get me up there. Fenris, guard the alley. Anders, you know what you're here for.”

The elves nodded, Fenris immediately slipping to the end of the lane, drawing the hilt of his sword out of his belt and flicking the dials to extend it to its mid-sized, matte black configuration, holding it behind him in the shadows. Anders settled under the sign, ready to catch or help if something went wrong, and Hawke found a spot to stand, turning to look at her last elf.

Watching Merrill jack in was always… interesting.

She slid receivers into both her ears, flicking a dial so that they extended a dark screen over her eyes, meeting in the middle and lighting up into a complex display unique to Merrill’s preference and needs. Merrill’s eyes glazed over, glowing faintly green as she raised her hands, twisting them and forming arcane patterns across the air, calling Fade through her body and into her fingers. She lifted her thumbs to her mouth and bit down on both of them, her blood dripping out and sending sparks across the fadegloves she was wearing, a red spectral keyboard that dripped electric drops forming around her hands. She tapped in a string of phrases and a snarl of pseudo-solid tendrils of blue number strings burst up through the stones beneath Hawke’s feet, tangling around her legs. They twisted tight, then surged up, supporting her weight and rising from the earth to lift her into the air.

Anders made a faint noise of alarm when she tilted backward and then ducked forward to balance on Merrill's pillar of code-vines, then settled, apparently appeased, watching the exchange in a couched spring, ready to jump if it was needed. His own gloves glowed faintly blue, ready to jack in and cast in a pinch. She slid her own receivers in, just in case, and let purple-blue energy arc across her own hands.

Merrill hummed softly to herself to maintain her focus, her fingers flying across the red keyboard, finessing the code of the Fade just a little more to inch Hawke closer to Aveline. When she was in range, the vines leapt the final few inches and caught both their legs. Hawke yanked a dagger out to cut Aveline down, sawing carefully through the corded ropes of wire and plastic grounding to get her off the sign.

The sign flickered as she sawed through the left side, and Aveline immediately looped that arm around Hawke’s back for balance.

“I swear, when I get down…”

“Hush, Aveline, I’m working as best I can.”

She cut into the right, and as soon as Aveline was free, the wires snapped and the neon sign burst, sending shards of glass and a spray of hot neon across the alley. Merrill squeaked, losing her focus, and Hawke threw down the dagger as the code-vines flickered and started to dissipate. It was half a second to flick open her fadegear vambrace and jack in with a hasty shout and a raw command of power that made even Fenris curse, the Fade thrumming louder in the alley, so loud his wirebrands burned.

Hawke wasn’t sure what she cast, but she heard Anders yell when Aveline dropped down against him, landing relatively safely, and that was enough. Merrill’s vines fractured and burst into raw code and smoke, and at least when she hit the ground a moment after, Fenris' hands sliding under her to take the worst of the fall, she didn’t hit her head so hard as to crack it open.

Just hard enough to plunge her senses into darkness, her vambrace snapping shut under her own weight against his chest and disconnecting her from the Fade in a rush of sound and sensory overload.


End file.
